Stages of a Pilgrimage - Archimandrite Placide (Deseille)

EARLY FORMATION 

I remember everyone who contributed to my human and spiritual education with profound gratitude. Beginning with my family, I was shaped in the school of the Church's great liturgical and patristic tradition. My grandmother and my two paternal aunts, who influenced me greatly, had as their bedside reading Dorn Cabrol's Book of Ancient Prayer, and Dom Gueranger's Liturgical Year, books which contained a great many splendid texts from the ancient liturgies of West and East. 

These three women were animated by a lively faith and deep piety, and had a horror of sentimental devotions. From very early on they knew how to give me a feeling and taste for the wealth of the Tradition. They also loved the monastic life, the works of Dom Mar-mion, and the great abbeys of Beuron, Maredsous, and Solemnes [1] were the high places of their Christianity. At the high school, my Jesuit teachers—men of prayer and intelligence, of a great nobility of heart—awakened in me a love for classical antiquity, for the chivalry of the Middle-Ages, and for the seventeenth century in France as well. But in no way did they oppose the influence of my family.

I must have been twelve years old when I read, in a magazine already quite old, an article on the monasteries of Meteora in Thessaly, illustrated with evocative photographs. It left me with a deep impres-sion, and I sensed that in those regions there existed a tradition still more venerable, still more authentic than the great, contemporary Benedictine abbeys which my grandmother was always talking to me about. I would have loved to become a monk at Great Meteora—but, obviously, that was an impossible hope. I could not even conceive of my one day being accepted into a Catholic monastery, so much did the way of life which they led there seem to me sublime and inaccessible. I looked forward to another future. 

The war of 1939 and the German occupation harshly altered the whole tenor of my life. I had the opportunity to go often to the Abbey of Wisques, in the Pas-de-Calais. There I became acquainted with a wonderful monk, Dom Pierre Doyere, a former naval officer who had entered this monastery and later become its prior. I always remained very fond of him, as well as of the Father Abbot, Dom Augustin Savaton. Fifteen years later I was obliged to collaborate with Dom Doyere in the edition, for the series Sources Chretiennes, of the works of Saint Gertrude d'Helfta, a great Benedictine mystic of the fourteenth century. 

The figure of Saint Francis of Assisi and his earliest companions, which I discovered through the works of Joergensen [2] and the Fioretti,[3] thrilled me, but later franciscanism held no attraction. I visited some Benedictine abbeys, Solemnes in particular. The latter I often came back to, and it remained for me, alongside the Grande Trappe, as a kind of second spiritual fatherland. Benedictine life, however, although it attracted me because it was rooted in tradition, still did not satisfy in me a certain need for the absolute, a taste for a kind of roughness in existence and a gospel primitivism, qualities I found symbolized by the franciscan hermitages of Umbria and the monasteries of Meteora. 

LIFE AS A CISTERCIAN (1942-1966) 

In July, 1942, providential circumstances led me to make a brief visit to the Cistercian Abbey of Bellefontaine, in Anjou.[4] Breaking rather oddly with his custom of putting vocations to a long test, the Abbot asked me very bluntly: "When do you want to enter?" I was received as a postulant the following September, at the age of sixteen. The Cistercian Trappists followed the rule of Saint Benedict, like the Benedictine; but their life had the stamp of a more pronounced simplicity and austerity. Among the Trappists I felt myself closer to the living sources of monasticism, closer to the Gospel as the Desert Fathers had wished to live it. 

The monastery's abbot, Dom Gabriel Sortais, was a man of great faith and prayer. Had he not one day stopped a fire by throwing his rosary into the burning building? Good and full of energy, rigorous in his personal asceticism and knowing how to show himself as demand-ing with regard to others, he applied to himself the example of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and was "father and mother" for his monks. I do not think that he read very much in the Fathers of the Church. But he was very attached to the monastic tradition, and through his obser-vance and concrete practice of the Rule he joined with the spirit of the ancient Fathers. 

IN THE SCHOOL OF THE CHURCH FATHERS AND THE SPIRITUAL TRADITION 

For my formation the Abbot gave me to the care of the Master of Novices, Father Emile, a young monk who was imbued with the teaching of Saint John Cassian and taught his novices the meaning of the Rule of Saint Benedict by commenting on it in relation to its sources, the Desert Fathers, Saint Pachomius, and Saint Basil the Great. Somewhat later I was obliged to read the writings of Saint Dorotheos of Gaza and Saint John of the Ladder, both of whom had been, for the Abbot de Rance, the great reformer of the [monastery of] Trappe in the seventeenth century, the principle sources of inspiration at the time of his conversion. During my years of formation, I kept assiduous company with the Cistercian authors of the twelfth century, who had harmoniously combined the Augustinian spiritual tradition with an Origenism that had been purified and distilled by Saints Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor. But I also loved the teachings of Saint John of the Cross,[5] and of the French school of the seventeenth century, where one can find something of the living breath of the Church Fathers, and authors such as Fathers Lallement and Surin, practical and lucid guides for whomever wanted to progress in the spiritual life. [6]

This monastic formation continued under the guidance of my spiritual father, Father Alphonse, a fervent monk, full of humor and on occasion something of a 'fool for Christ." It was also at the monastery that I did my theological studies. For several years I studied the works of Thomas Aquinas in a quite thorough way. I liked Thomistic philosophy very much. I found in it an excellent antidote to the poisons of individualism, subjectivism, and idealism that have infected modern thought. But the manner in which Thomas Aquinas conceived the relations between nature and grace, and the use he made of reason—even if dependent on the Faith—to construct a theology answering to the Aristotelian definition of 'science troubled me. It was profoundly different from the Fathers' approach to theology. I had no trouble in admiring the coherence and harmony of Thomism's theological synthesis, but for me it recalled the gothic architecture of Thomas's era: quite brilliant, but where reason is too rigorous in forcing the materials to submit to its demands. By its nature, the Scholastic method seemed to me open to reducing the mysteries of God to what reason can grasp of them, hemming them in with its defini-tions, or enclosing them in syllogisms. The writings of the Fathers, on the other hand, breathed a sense of the sacred and of the mystery, evoked a reciprocal penetration of the human and divine, and found their corresponding school of plastic arts in the art of the Romanesque and of Byzantium. 

This attachment to the Fathers brought me occasional disappointments. A little before my ordination to the priesthood, the Abbot advised me to read a good treatise on the priesthood. I replied that I would like to read some work of the Fathers on the subject. He answered sharply: "But you're simply not thinking! You're going to be ordained in three weeks: right now you have to read something serious on the priesthood. The Fathers! You'll have plenty of time to read the Fathers later, as an addition." And I was obliged to read a pious work of the nineteenth century, as sentimental in its effusions as it was rationalizing in its theology. I often met with similar reactions. Another superior of a monastery whom I had been speaking with about the Fathers answered me with: "Yes, certainly, there are lovely things in the Fathers. But they neither have any theology nor mysti-cism. There was no real theology in the Church before Saint Thomas. And, if there were great ascetics in the East, there were still no mystics. In the Church, mysticism begins with Saint Bernard and does not arrive at maturity until Saint John of the Cross, in the sixteenth century." These two observations deserve to be cited, because they illustrate a state of mind that I often collided with. One would willingly admit that the Fathers are very interesting, that they remain precious sources, but the same person would be unable to find in them any matured teaching. According to this view, the Fathers' thought was still sketchy. Between them and the great classics of Roman Catholicism, the latter all being after the twelfth century, there was all the difference that separates the child and the adolescent from the adult. 

It was impossible for me to share in this way of seeing things. To be sure, I admired Thomas Aquinas, and I hoped that, by not interpret-ing him through his later commentators but by reading him with respect to his patristic source, it would be possible to reduce the differences that separated him from the teaching of the Fathers. But I had the inner conviction that it was the latter who were the privileged witnesses to the tradition of the Church, and that one would find its fullness in them. With them, every aspect of doctrine and of Christian life was always explained in the light of the central mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the deification of man through the redeeming Incarnation of Christ. With them, knowledge always proceeded from the fullness of life and spiritual experience. Quoting a formula whose author I have forgotten and which I cite from memory: "They do not teach by way of deduction or conjecture; they speak to us about a country where they have gone themselves." 

That which interested me about the Fathers was not, moreover, whatever was most individual or original in their thought; to the contrary, it was the convergences, everything that witnessed to the tradition of the Church that each of them had received and personally assumed. I was enchanted by the criterion of Saint Vincent of Lerins: "One must take the greatest care to hold as true that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all." It is in the assembly of the Church, unanimous in love throughout time and space, that the Holy Spirit manifests the fullness of truth. The liturgy, too, filled me to overflowing, because it was not the prayer of an individual or a particular group; it did not bear the marks of any one place or of any specific period: born in the age of the Fathers, it had developed while passing through the filter of generations of believers at prayer, and what remained was authentically of the Church. 

I was thoroughly happy at the monastery. I felt intimately in harmony with the liturgical life and the whole range of observances. Bellefontaine, moreover, was a monastery where great fidelity to the Rule was allied with a spirit of freedom and relative flexibility. The Abbot was quite free of fussiness. The one thing that troubled me was a certain discontinuity between, on the one hand, our observance of the Rule and the liturgy, and, on the other, our theology and spirituality. While the former had stayed the same as they had been during the first eleven centuries of the Church, the latter, to the contrary, had become, for many monks, marked by modern Catholicism. I remember saying one day, and this was not simply a witticism: "Our Rule and liturgy are patristic, our theology Dominican, and our spirituality Jesuit or Carmelite!" The problem was quite similar to what I would later encounter among the Uniate Churches: one is in the presence of a venerable tradition, but a tradition that has been torn from its original climate and which many follow only out of obedience, without having a deep "feeling" for its meaning. It seemed to me necessary to reconstruct the unity of our life by returning to the teaching and mind of the Fathers. And I had a presentiment that the Orthodox Church had kept this great tradition of the first Christian centuries more faithfully. 

FIRST MEETING WITH THE ORTHODOX CHURCH: THE INSTITUTE OF ST. SERGIUS 

I was ordained priest in 1952. A little while later, I was named a professor of dogmatic theology, and, a little after, was made responsible at the same time for the spiritual formation of the young monks of the monastery who were studying in preparation for the priesthood. Concerned that I provide theological instruction in accord with the mind of the Fathers, I took advantage of several trips to Paris, on behalf of monastery business, to meet with Father Cyprian Kern, professor of patristics at the Institute of Saint Sergius, and with Vladimir Lossky, whose Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church had filled me with enthusiasm (in spite of the express warnings of that excellent Jesuit who had had the imprudence to make me a present of this explosive book). It happened, alas! that Lossky chanced to die shortly after our meeting. 

Father Cyprian initiated me into the doctrine of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, of Saint Maximus the Confessor, and of Saint Gregory Palamas. He showed me, over the course of long conversations and with unlimited kindness, how the Christology of the Council of Chalcedon and the Palamite doctrine of the divine energies are the keys to the Orthodox understanding of the Church, of man, and of the universe. However, very careful and respectful of the conscience of the other, Father Cyprian never suggested that I enter the Orthodox Church. At that period, moreover, the idea would not have taken root in me. My belonging to the Catholic Church seemed to me to be self-evident and unquestionable. My concern was to find in the Orthodox tradition some help for better penetrating the meaning of my own tradition. 

I loved the Latin liturgy deeply. Knowledge of the Orthodox liturgy, which I had just discovered with amazement at Saint Sergius, made me the more sharply aware of the analogous wealth, albeit more hidden, concealed in the traditional Latin liturgy, and stirred me to live in it more intensely. The liturgy of the Trappists was at that time, in spite of some later additions that were easily discernable and did not detract from the whole, identical with the liturgy which the West had been celebrating in the era before it had broken communion with the East. In contrast to the Byzantine liturgy, it was composed almost exclusively of biblical texts, which could seem initially very dry, but these texts had been very skillfully chosen. The unfolding of the liturgical year was perfectly harmonious and the rites, in spite of their sobriety, were charged with a great wealth of meaning. If one took the trouble, outside of the services, during the hours of that lectio divina so characteristic of the earlier monastic spirituality of the West, to take to heart a knowledge of the Bible and the interpretations that the Fathers had given it, the celebration of the divine office took on, with God's grace, a wonderful sweetness.

 

PUBLICATIONS AND OTHER ACTIVITIES 

In 1958, I was sent to Rome to do higher studies in theology. For me, this was an opportunity to assemble, while frequenting the libraries, abundant documentation for the subjects that were close to my heart, and to bathe myself in the atmosphere of the ancient Rome of the catacombs and basilicas. Going often to ancient Ostia, to the lower levels of the basilicas of Saint Clement, of Saints John and Paul or of Saint Cecile, the daily sight of the Coliseum and the Circus Maximus, were a vivifying immersion in that ancient Christianity of our roots. 

During this period I was associated with the secretariat of the series, Sources Chrétiennes, in order to organize a series of volumes dedicated to medieval monastic texts. To be honest, the Abbot General of the Cistercian Order—the former Abbot of Bellefontaine, Dom Gabriel Sortais, who had at the time been promoted to this responsibility—had only asked me to create a collection of Cistercian texts of the twelfth century. However, it seemed to me desirable not to isolate these texts from the rest of the monastic and patristic tradition. I wanted to avoid giving the impression that there was a "Cistercian spirituality," in the modern sense of the word, in the same way that there is an Ignatian or Carmelite spirituality. It was the gift of monasticism to explode such specializations. Throughout the history of monasticism there have been different lines of spiritual Fathers and disciples and, while one may find varying dosages of the different elements constitutive of monasticism according to times and places, the monastic life is fundamentally one. This derives precisely from its patristic character. Diverse spiritualities are born later, only in the West. 

I easily obtained the agreement of the Father General that the project be enlarged in this way. On my return to France this task of editing was thus added to my teaching of theology. They also asked me to give spiritual retreats in several monasteries and submit articles to various journals and encyclopedic dictionaries [e.g. the Dictionary of Spirituality -ED.]. They conferred on me the editing of the project of a "Spiritual Directory," a sort of manual of spirituality for the use of the Cistercian order. Some judged the result of my efforts too influenced by the doctrine of the Desert Fathers and the Greek patristic tradition to represent truly what they had meant by "Cistercian spirituality." The project of an official manual was, moreover, finally abandoned: divergent tendencies within the Order were already beginning to surface. These "Principles of Monastic Spirituality" (1962), at first simply mimeographed, became later, revised and complete, L'Echelle de Jacob (1974) [Jacob's Ladder—unfortunately not yet in English transla-tion-ED.]. 

In order to return to the sources of monasticism and the spiritual life, I hoped that a collection of ancient and eastern monastic texts could be undertaken in parallel with the series of western monastic texts of Sources cbritiennes, but with less in the way of scholarly apparatus, in order to encourage its diffusion. This project did not result in anything until 1966 with the publication of the first volume of the series, "Eastern Spirituality," devoted to the sayings of the Desert Fathers. I had then already left Bellefontaine for Aubazine, but was able in any case to remain editor of the collection right up to my entry into the Orthodox Church. 

TRIP TO EGYPT 

In 1960, at the invitation of his Grace, Elias Zoghby, at that time patriarchal vicar for the Greek Catholics in Egypt, I went on a trip to that country in order to make contact with Coptic monasticism. During this time, I stayed at the monastery of Deir Suriani in Wadi Natroun, the ancient desert of Scete, and did no more than visit the other monasteries. I felt it an inestimable grace, this pilgrimage in the places that were during the fourth century the most radiant center of monastic life, to the point that Abba Arsenius could say that Scete was to the monks what Rome was to the world. The monasticism of Scete has always had a great attraction for me. Without doubt, it is with the Sayings of the Desert Fathers that I have always felt myself to be most intimately in accord. 

The desert of Scete is a vast plain of sand, lightly dimpled with valleys and sprinkled with rare tufts of hardy grass, which extends to the south of the highway linking Cairo to Alexandria. The four present monasteries, Saint Makarios, Deir Baramous, Amba Bishoi, and Deir Suriani (an extension of the former), occupy the place of three of the most ancient monastic centers of this desert. They appear as long, rectangular fortresses surrounded by high walls, with the domes of the churches and the massive outline of the keeps peering over the top, refuges against the desert bandits who, on several occasions, had massacred the monks. Built over springs of water, they appear on the inside of their enclosures like paradisiacal oases, in sharp contrast to the immense desolation that encircles them on all sides. At the period when I visited them, Coptic monasticism was enjoying a remarkable revival, one that has not yet begun to slow down. 

At the origins of this renewal was a monk, named Abdel Messieh (servant of Christ), who had been living in a cave since 1935. The Pope of Alexandria in office in 1960, Kirillos VI, himself a former anchorite, had been profoundly influenced by this monk and was encouraging the monastic resurgence. At Deir Suriani, a few oldsters continued to lead an idiorhythmic life in the monastery, but all the young monks, the majority of whom came from a university environment, were leading a strictly cenobitic life, with the exception of one or another living at some distance away in the desert and coming back only at regular intervals to the monastery. Their day began with an hour's rule of prayer in their cells, followed by a long morning office in the church and the Liturgy. During the day, the monks divided up among themselves the different tasks in the monastery: gardening, printing, translating the texts of the Fathers into Arabic. The practice of the Jesus prayer was familiar to them. For me, this was the first discovery of a way of life that I would discover later, in almost identical form, on Mount Athos. I was as well greatly impressed by my meeting with Father Matta el Meskine (Matthew the Poor), who at the time was leading a semi-eremetical life at Helouan together with some disciples. 

BIBLICAL, LITURGICAL, AND PATRISTIC RENEWAL IN THE ROMAN CHURCH

During the period which extends from the Second World War to the Second Vatican Council, a vigorous biblical, liturgical, and patristic renewal became discernable in the Roman Church under the influence of men like Father de Lubac,[7] Father Daniélou,[8] Dom Odo Casel, [9] of journals such as Dieu Vivant [10] and La Maison-Dieu, of publications like Sources Chrétiennes. [11] I looked forward to a great deal from these efforts. Two things, however, gave me pause. On the one hand, it was clear that interest in this movement was quite limited; it scarcely reached the majority of the French diocesan clergy. On the other hand, a very considerable portion of the Roman Church’s living strength was involved in the movements belonging to Action Catholique [12] and in pastoral experiments of the kind that gave us worker priests. [13] I felt a real sympathy for this abundance of effort and for the undeniably apostolic fervor to which they gave expression. At the same time, however, felt tha, in spite of partial convergences, they came out of a very different climate than biblical and patristic renewal. Action Catholique implied, in its praxis, an ecclesiology that was no longer, to be sure, that of the Counter Reformation, [14] but which nonetheless was not that of the Early Church either. One could also perceive in this movement a drift towards forms of liturgical celebration that were quite alien to the spirit of the traditional liturgies. In all this I sensed a new manifestation of modern Catholicism rather than a living return to the sources, which latter would have required a radical rethinking of the whole question.

I had not realized clearly enough that this second new trend was much more representative than the first of the inner logic of modern Catholicism, and that it was therefore likely to finish by neutralizing and supplanting the other tendencies. I was hoping that the dry bones were going to come to life again, and that all that the Roman Church had kept of the traditional elements in her institutions and her liturgy was going to become once again an invigorating and digestible food for modern man. I was hoping that, somehow, the Catholicism of the Counter Reform, in all the ways that it had become foreign to the great tradition of the Church, would give way to a resurrection of the “Western Orthodoxy” of the first Christian centuries by virtue of the combination of the ancient heritage, rediscovered, with the lively forces of today.

THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

In this frame of mind I welcomed with great joy the announcement of the Second Vatican Council. Little by little, however, I became aware of all that was ambiguous in the flow of ideas that were arising in the course of the conciliar debates, and whose repercussions were being felt even as far as our monastery. The Abbot General, who was perhaps more sensitive to the way in which authority was being undermined than to distortions of the Tradition, said to me one day: “I am very worried about the way the council is doing its work. If things go on in this way, the Church will be faced with one of the worst crises in her history.”

Hope gradually faded that there would be a renewal of the structures and observances of the Roman Church through a return to the spirit and doctrine of the Fathers. With the Council, it was in many respects just the opposite that emerged. The Council itself, though, was responsible only quite indirectly. It served rather as an indicator. Up to the Council a great portion of the ancient institutions, in particular the traditional liturgy of the West, had been able to continue in spite of numerous alterations because Catholicism, governed by a strong and universally respected central power, had held on to them by means of authority. But to a large extent the faithful, and even more so the clergy, had lost sight of their deeper meaning. With the Council the pressure of authority weakened, and it was logical that what had lost its meaning should finally collapse, and that one should be led to a reconstruction on new foundations in conformity with what had become over several centuries-—or became now—the spirit of Roman Catholicism.

THE MONASTERY AT AUBAZINE (1966-1977)

ORIGINS OF THE MONASTERY 'S FOUNDATION

During the years 1962-1965 the tendencies I have just referred to began to solidify. It became obvious that I could not think and live in accordance with the principles that seemed to me to be true without creating tensions and pointless conflict in the very heart of the monastery. All the same, I was certain that the fullness of the truth belonged on the side of the Fathers and the Early Church, on the side of that Orthodoxy that I loved without yet realizing that it could be, purely and simply, the Church.

I asked myself then whether the presence of Christians in the heart of the Roman Catholic Church, practicing Eastern rites and living the same tradition as the Orthodox, could not be the leaven that would any day bring about the return of the whole body to the spirit of the Christianity of the Fathers. Uniatism had been conceived by Rome as a means to bring Orthodox Christians into union with Rome without requiring them to renounce their own traditions. The development of ecumenism in the Catholic world tended to make this point of view obsolete. But, could one not hope that the presence and witness of Catholics of the Eastern Rite would contribute to bringing the whole of the Roman Church back to the fullness of the tradition? The clear and courageous contributions of the Melkite bishops to the Council lent some substance to these hopes.

If this were the case, could not the adoption of the Byzantine rite become for Catholics of Western origin a means of living the fullness of the tradition, given the present situation of the Roman Church, at some remove from the futile conflict between defenders of an already modified tradition—that of the end of the Middle Ages and the Counter Relormation—and supporters of the post-conciliar changes?

What therefore prompted me to turn towards the Byzantine tradition had nothing to do with its “oriental” character. I have never felt myself to be an “oriental,” nor wanted to become so. But, given the state of things, the practice of the Byzantine liturgy seemed to me to be the most suitable means for entering into the fullness of the patristic tradition in a way that would be neither scholarly nor intellectual, but living and concrete. The Byzantine liturgy has always appeared to me much less as an “eastern” liturgy than as the sole existing liturgical tradition concerning which one could say: “It has done nothing more nor less than closely incorporate into liturgical life all the great theology elaborated by the Fathers and Councils before the ninth century. In it the Church, triumphant over heresies, sings her thanks-giving, the great doxology of the Trinitarian and Christological theology of Saint Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Saint John Chrysost- om, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, and Saint Maximus the Confessor. Through it shines the spirituality of the great monastic movements, from the Desert Fathers, from Evagrius, Cassian, and the monks of Sinai, to those of Studion and, later, of Mount Athos. .. In it, in a word, the whole world, transfigured by the presence of divine glory, reveals itself in a truly eschatological dimension.” [15]

THE MONASTERY OF THE TRANSFIGURATION

It was in this spirit that, accompanied by another monk of Bellefontaine who had over several years undergone an interior evolution comparable to my own, that I began on September 14, 1966, the foundation of the Monastery of the Transfiguration at Aubazine in Correze. We were joined fairly soon by several others. We tried thus for more than ten years to live the liturgical and spiritual tradition of Orthodoxy while remaining in the Roman Catholic Church. The necessary authorizations were given us quite easly, both by our monastic superiors and by Rome. We were never given, however, any precise canonical status: there was no existing canonical framework for four center, and it was only the uncertainty of canon law during the postconciliar period that made our enterprise possible.

We had at our disposal a woodland of seven hectares on a hillside overlooking the whole region of Brive to the borders of Limousin, Quercy, and Perigord. Little by little, using our own resources, we built a wooden church, a community building comprising kitchen, refectory, library, and various essential offices, a building for our guests, a workshop, and separate cabins to serve as cells for the members of the community. Our way of life, however, was cenobitic: the services in the church, our meals, and all our resources were in common.

The novice master of a famous French monastery summed up his impressions after a stay at Aubazine: “I was quite attracted by many aspects of monastic life as led at Aubazine. Some quick impressions: solitude, rather harsh poverty, a great simplicity of life, a spirit of utmost freedom for each person with nevertheless a very high standard of discipline, the central place given to the spiritual and strongly personal relationship berween the father of the community and the brothers, the relatively unstructured character of community life, or, in other words, the great “lightness” of the monastery as an institution, an obvious closeness to the original sources of monasticism and the great Eastern tradition.” These remarks seem to me rather fairly to sum up what we were at least trying to accomplish.

Among the young men who joined us several appeared, after some experience, called to a more “classically” monastic life and have since become splendid monks in Cistercian and Benedictine abbeys, or with the Carthusians. Others, attracted by the eremetical aspect of our lives, found the element of community life which we tried to keep a stumbling block. I have, indeed, always felt the latter to be an indispensable safeguard against serious spiritual delusions. Nothing inclines us more to union with God than the renunciation of our own will and our individual fantasies. The hermit’s life can only be safely led by monks who have already acquired great experience in the spiritual life. From this point of view, our living in separate cells, or "hermitages", was probably not a very good idea for beginners.

THE ECCLESIOLOGICAL PROBLEM

In itself the life we led at Aubazine fulfilled our hopes. Gradually, however, a problem came to light that we had not foreseen at the beginning. We had dealings both with Orthodox monasteries and with communities of the Eastern Rite in union with Rome. To the degree that we came to know both groups better, we could see to what extent the Uniate Churches had been cut off from their roots and their own tradition, and that their position in the Roman Catholic Church was no better than marginal. Even when the Uniates reproduced the outer forms of the Orthodox liturgy and Orthodox monasticism as exactly as possible, the spirit that animated their attempts was altogether different.

Westerners who chose the Byzantine rite faced a particular danger, for, no longer regarding themselves as subject to the demands peculiar to the Latin tradition, they were also deprived of the safeguards that these provide without, at the same time, benefiting from those which membership in the Orthodox Church would have brought them. Consequently, there is a great risk of following only one’s own, subjective ideas, neither Catholic nor Orthodox, under the cover of “easternism” and so leaving the field open for abuses and illusions. 

On the other hand, the post-conciliar evolution of the Roman Church was continuing. I hesitate to speak of a “crisis”; in any case I thought it very doubtful that the survival or even the prosperity of the Roman Church in this world were seriously threatened. In many respects, it was quite probable that, in spite of an unavoidable reduction in numbers, her influence and that of the papacy would increase, especially in the field of ecumenical relations and world diplomacy. But, there is no doubt that many aspects of the Catholic Church changed very much in the years following the Council. And there can be no doubt that the most symptomatic change is that which has taken place in her liturgy. As Father Joseph Gelineau, one of the men deeply involved in these reforms, wrote after Vatican II: “It is a different liturgy from the Mass. In plain language: the Roman rite, as we knew it, no longer exists. It has been done away with.”[16]

These changes troubled many of the faithful because they were made so hastily. Nevertheless, as I now became aware, they were in a sense quite normal and in conformity with the inner logic of Catholicism. Moreover, they followed in the wake of other, sometimes more important mutations which had only gone unnoticed by their contemporaries because our rapid means of communication were not available in earlier centuries and the spread of information took much longer.

I was thus led to reflect on the religious history of the West, and especially on the profound changes that one sees in almost all areas between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. At that time the institutions of the Church were altered (notably the understanding of the papacy with the Gregorian reform*), and so were the rites of the sacraments (the abandonment of baptism by immersion, of communion under both kinds, of the deprecative formula of absolution,** etc.), and doctrine (the introduction of the Filioque in the Creed and the development of the scholastic method in theology). One may note simultaneously the appearance of a new religious art, naturalistic, which breaks with the traditional canons of Christian art as elaborated over the course of the era of the Fathers.

This fact, moreover, is recognized by Catholic historians. As Father Yves Congar has written: “The great shift is located at the hinge of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But the shift takes place only in the West. Between the ends of the eleventh and thirteenth centuries everything changes. This did not affect the East where, in so many ways, Christian practices remain today as they were—and as they were with us—before the end of the eleventh century. The more one understands these things, the more this observation is confirmed; and it is a very serious matter since it points us back precisely to the moment when the schism became a fact which, up to now, has found no real cure. It is impossible that this coincidence should be purely accidental and external.” [17] Still more recently, another historian has confirmed these views: “It is certainly not accidental that the break between Rome and Constantinople became definitive in 1054, at the very moment when, under the influence of the reform movement, the papacy and the Western Church had chosen to travel religious paths that were altogether new." [18] 

For Father Congar, certainly, this mutation does not bear on the essentials of the faith. Nevertheless, it is a fact that both sides felt the divergences that had thus appeared between the two Churches necessarily entailed a break in communion. Thus there was schism, and even heresy, since dogmatic principles were affirmed on the one side and denied on the other. And history, so it seemed to me, made it quite clear that the initiative for the rupture had come from the Church of the West.

In order to justify her internal evolution the Roman Church appeals to the doctrine of the development of dogma, and to the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. Seen this way, the various changes appear as stages in a legitimate process of growth, and the definition of new dogmas as a transition from the implicit to the explicit. The new forms are contained in the old as the oak tree is in the acorn. The sole definitive criterion permitting one to discern with certainty a legitimate development from a distortion or corruption of the Tradition is communion with the Roman Pontiff, and the guarantee of his doctrinal infallibility. The essential identity between the two successive stages of development can thus be affirmed, even if it should escape the observer, provided it be admitted by the pope.

It was thus that solely the doctrine of papal primacy and infallibility could reassure me of the identity of the present-day Roman Church with the Early Church, in spite of historical facts pointing to the contrary and what my own inner sense suggested to me concerning matters of the faith.

But on this point again, familiarity with the Fathers of the Church and the study of history exposed me to the fragility of the Roman position. Admittedly, the popes claimed a primacy of divine right from very early on, though without making a “dogma” of it as would later be the case. But this demand was never unanimously accepted in the Early Church, Quite the contrary, one can say that the present dogma of the Roman primacy and infaliblity is opposed to the spirit and general practice of the Church during the first ten centuries. The same is true of other doctrinal diferences, particularly the filioque, which appeared very early in the Latin Church, but which was never received by the rest of the Christian world as part of the deposit of faith (this is why its definition as dogma can only be considered by the Orthodox Church as an error in matters of faith).

I observed that the analysis of Catholic historians agreed, in great part, with that of Orthodox theologians, even if they did not draw identical conclusions from the facts—the former’s main concern being ‘often to discern in the distant past some faint indications of subsequent developments. Even so Mgr. Batiffol, for example, wrote concerning the idea of the Pope as successor of Saint Peter: “Saint Basil does not mention it, neither does Saint Gregory Nazianzus or Saint John Chrysostom. The authority of the bishop of Rome is one of the first importance, but in the East it was never seen as an authority by divine right." [19]

Concerning the infalliblity of the Pope, Father F. W. De Vries, speaking of the formula, “Peter has spoken through Agathon!” which was used by the Fathers ofthe VIth Ecumenical Council, acknowledges that: “This formula is nothing other than a solemn affirmation, made after a thorough examination of Agathon’s letter, that Agathon (the pope at the time) was in accordance with the witness of Saint Peter. This exclamation in no way means that Agathon must be right since he possesses the authority of Peter... Another indication of the non-recognition by the Council of the absolute authority of the Pope in matters of doctrine is the very fact that Honorius—rightly or wrongly, it makes no difference—was condemned by the Council as a heretic, and that Pope Leo II made no objection to the fact that a Council had done so. The phrase of the Codex juris canonici: ‘Prima sedes a nemine judicatur (The first See is judged by no one)’ was not therefore, at that time, recognized in an absolute sense even in Rome. In any case, a similar condemnation of a Pope would be unthinkable today. One must thus admit that there has been an evolution.” [20] 

A PROPHETIC EXPERIMENT?

For several years I had been attracted by an argument supported by a number of Catholic ecumenists who were genuinely favorable towards Orthodoxy. If true, it would have made complete sense of what we were trying to live out at Aubazine.

According to these theologians, one of the most outstanding of whom was Louis Bouyer, the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church had never, in spite of appearances, ceased to be one Church. They are two local Churches, of rather, two groups of local Churches, each fulfilling the fullness of the Church of Christin a different though equivalent way. The quarrel between them is age-old and based on misunderstandings, but they are not really separate and have never ceased to comprise, together, the one, visible Church of Christ.

If we admit this argument, we can even go so far as to say that the Orthodox Church has preserved, better than the Catholic Church, certain aspects of the Church's original tradition, though the Roman Catholic Church has nevertheless neither given up nor altered anything essential, and, further, has developed other aspects of Christian life better than the Orthodox, such as missionary awareness and a sense of universality, and has also known better how to adapt itself to the modern world. Their reestablishment of full communion, to which in theory there would be no impediment, would greatly enrich both Churches and, moreover, would allow the Roman Church to overcome her difficulties in the post-conciliar period.

An experiment such as we were conducting at Aubazine would as a consequence become of great interest and be clothed with, as it were, a prophetic significance. A good number of our Catholic friends, and perhaps certain of our Orthodox friends, had more or less consciously adopted this point of view, one which the mutual lifting of the anathemas of 1054 and the title of “sister churches,” often used by Rome, seemed to justify.

Gradually, however, we realized, not without suffering and inner anguish, that this understanding was an illusion—a noble one, certainly, but one in contradiction with the fundamental principles of ecclesiology. It is impossible that two Churches not in sacramental communion for over a thousand years, and with one defining as dogmas what the other has rejected as contrary to the Apostolic Faith. should both be the Church of Christ. This would be to admit that the gates of hell had prevailed against her, that division had penetrated the Church herself. The Fathers would have been unanimous in rejecting such a doctrine, Furthermore, the fact that the Roman Catholic Church has for centuries appointed Catholic bishops, Uniate or Latin, to episcopal sees which already have an Orthodox incumbent is a clear sign of the non-identity of the two Churches, even on a local level.

THE LAST STAGES

It was only very gradually that I came to the conclusion that the Orthodox Church is the Church of Christ in her fullness, and that the Roman Catholic Church is a member separated from her. Such a trek would doubtless have been easier for younger men, or for men less integrated than I was into the Roman Church. For a Catholic of my generation, the idea of papal primacy was deeply rooted. Besides, in my earliest years at the Trappist monastery I had known the Latin tradition in one of its purest forms, well-preserved until very recently. Thad also known monks, nuns, and fervent Christians who had shone with a deep spiritual life, I was familiar with the lives of many Catholic saints, to me their sanctity seemed to be beyond doubt, and close to that of Orthodox saints. I was aware of and loved everything there was of authentic Christianity—which now I would tend to call genuine Orthodox survivals—among Roman Catholics.

Towards the end of 1976, however, my brothers at Aubazine and I were impressed with the certainty that we could no longer delay. We had to plan for our entry into the Orthodox Church. Should it be quickly, or should we await a more favorable opportunity? Some objections appeared. We were fairly well-known in the Catholic world. Our monastery had a modest but real influence. Would it not be preferable, for the time being, to remain among Roman Catholics, in order to help them in rediscovering their roots, in returning to the common sources of the two traditions? Would this not be more prudent, more in keeping with charity, more likely to further Christian unity? Besides, was this not the only way to safeguard the very existence of our monastery at Aubazine, and so continue the work we had already begun?

But how could we remain loyal members of the Catholic Church, and so continue to profess outwardly all her dogmas, when inwardly we were convinced that certain of these dogmas had departed from the Tradition of the Church? How could we continue to share in the same Eucharist while aware of our differences regarding the Faith? How could we remain outside the Orthodox Church, outside of which there could be no salvation and life in the Spirit for those who, having recognized her as the Church of Christ, refused to join her for human motives? To give in to considerations of ecumenical diplomacy, opportunity, and personal convenience would, in our case, have been to seek to please men rather than God, and to lie both to men and to God. Nothing could have justified such duplicity.

Where could we best be received into the Church? We knew that the situation of the Orthodox Church in France is a delicate one, that her bishops must take into account the overwhelming presence of the Catholic majority and strive to keep their relationship with the Catholic hierarchy as amicable as possible. We were concerned that our reception into the Orthodox Church might arouse considerable opposition in some Catholic circles, and that this could only be harmful for the Orthodox Church in France. The events following our reception only proved that we were correct, indeed, even more so than we had thought. Several well-known Orthodox people whom we consulted at the time made no secret of the fact that it would, in fact, be expedient for us to be received outside of France.

In previous years we had made several journeys to Orthodox countries: Rumania, Serbia, Greece, and Mount Athos. At the time we had no thought of joining the Orthodox Church, but had wanted to acquire firsthand knowledge of Orthodoxy and become acquainted with her liturgical and monastic life. We had particularly liked Rumania, in which we had seen the combination of a lively monasticism, including some very remarkable spiritual personalities, and a population animated by a deep faith and piety. But now that the problem of our reception into the Church had arisen, we did not feel that the domestic situation in Rumania would allow us to set up a canonical bond between ourselves and this Church—which still remains very dear to us. Then a series of circumstances, in which we could not but see the hand of God, opened up for us the doors of the monastery of Simonos Petras on Mount Athos.

Once we had made our decision, I went, on April 2, 1977, to see the Catholic bishop of Tulle, Mgr. Brunon, who was responsible for us. Another member of our community accompanied me. The bishop listened to us at length, and with genuine kindness. He recognized that our decision had not been taken lightly, but had been reached after long years of prayer and reflection, He added that, from his point of view, we deserved neither blame nor reproach, but that we would have to act with prudence and discretion in order to avoid trouble and confusion for those around us. He even hoped that our step, would be understood and accepted by Rome—a hope that events were quickly to dash. He, too, felt that it would be preferable for us to be received into the Orthodox Church in Greece or on the Holy Mountain, rather than in France, in order not to create unnecessary problems.

At his request, we went shortly afterwards to Rome to speak with Cardinal Paul Phillipe, at that time Prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches united with Rome. The Cardinal received us on April 14th, He was very kindly disposed toward us, but we saw immediately that the heart of the problem could not be reached with him. He told us: “As far as I am concerned, I believe that there is no real difference of faith between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. You may adopt the whole of Orthodox doctrine, the Orthodox liturgy, Orthodox spirituality, monasticism, and still be in union with Rome.” He then assured us that he would help us in every possible way and give us every opportunity to pursue our experiment at Aubazine within the framework of the Catholic Church. But this was no longer the issue, and we could not commit ourselves to this path.

Subsequently, the bishop of Tulle adopted a much less conciliatory attitude toward us, and gave us notice to leave the premises at Aubazine which we had built with our own hands. He also took steps to make his wishes known to Catholic ecumenical organizations and to the Orthodox authorities.

During the same period we went to see the Father Abbot of Bellefontaine, who was still our canonical superior, in order to explain our decision to him. He was quite surprised at it, and told us clearly and frankly that he could only disapprove of it. But he added that he respected our conscience, refused to condemn us, and was anxious to maintain the most trusting and brotherly relations with us. He never did change his atitude, and was always honest and full of evangelical charity.

MOUNT ATHOS AND THE CHURCH IN FRANCE (SINCE 1978)

MOUNT ATHOS

We left shortly afterward for the Holy Mountain. Our acquaintance with the Orthodox Church and her monasticism was still superficial and inadequate. The opportunity of receiving within the monastery a sound introduction to this way of life was an invaluable gift. Simonos Petras was remarkable as much for the spiritual personality of its abbot as for the youthfulness and spiritual vigor of its community. On several occasions Catholic monks had been received very hospitably as visitors, and the problems and realities of the West were at this monastery particularly well known and understood.

Our first stay at Athos dated back to the spring of 1971. In those days people in the West spoke of the Holy Mountain only in terms of decline and decay, and there was no lack of voices predicting the complete extinction of Athonite monasticism in the very near future.

This first visit had already given us to understand that categories such as "decline"—or, conversely, “renewal”—are quite inadequate when speaking of Orthodox monasticism. They bring to mind primarily the external, sociological, and statistical aspects of the situation. But the essential thing is the inner life, and that eludes investigations of this kind. There had certainly been a considerable drop in numbers. This was due, so far as the Slavonic monasteries were concerned, to the consequences of the establishment of the Soviet regime in Russia, and, with regard to the Greeks, to the forced exodus in 1922, which had destroyed the flourishing Greek Christian civilization of Asia Minor, and afterwards the Second World War and the Greek Civil War. By 1971, however, this reduction in numbers had stabilized, and the recovery had slowly begun. Then it suddenly accelerated to an unhoped for extent. Thanks to the arrival of large numbers of novices and young monks, monasteries that had contained no more than a few elderly monks came, one by one, back to life again.

It must be made clear that the young monks whom one meets everywhere on Athos today in no way claim to be either renewing or changing its monastic life. On the contrary, they tend rather to take up again the most traditional and strict way of life by abandoning the moderation of idiorhythmic monasticism. They want only to be disciples, and they benefit from the experience of very gifted spiritual fathers, whom the Holy Mountain has never lacked.

The Elder Silouan, who lived on Athos from 1892 to 1938, is well known in the West, thanks to the books of Father Sophrony. But, during the same period, there were many monks on Athos whose intensity of spiritual life yielded nothing to his own. Several monasteries are under the direction of spiritual fathers who were themselves given their formation by Father Joseph, a hesychast (died 1959) whose splendid spiritual letters have recently been published in Greece.

The monks of Mount Athos are often criticized for their opposition to ecumenism, and are quite happily accused of sacrificing love for truth. We readily saw, from the time of our first visit when we were still Roman Catholics with no thought whatever of becoming Orthodox, how well the monks knew how to combine a gracious and attentive love towards other people, whatever their religious convictions and allegiance, with doctrinal intransigence. As they see it, moreover, total respect for the truth is one of the first duties that love for the other requires of them.

They have no particular doctrinal position. They simply profess the faith of the Orthodox Church: “The Church is one. And this one and true Church, which safeguards the continuity of ecclesial life, that is, the unity of the Tradition, is Orthodoxy. To allow that this one and true Church, in its pure form, is not to be found on earth, but that it is pantally contained in different ‘branches’ would be . . . to have no faith in the Church and in her Head.” [21]

Quite simply, the Athonites want this conviction to be in keeping with their deeds. They cannot approve of words or behavior that would seem to imply a de facto recognition of the “branch theory.” Christian unity, which is as dear to their hearts as anyone's, can only be brought to pass by the agreement of the non-Orthodox to the integrity and fullness of the Apostolic Faith. It could never be the fruit of compromise or of efforts born of a natural and human aspiration for unity among men. This would be to cheapen the deposit of faith entrusted to the Church. In ecumenism, as in the spiritual life, the Athonite position is one of sobriety and discernment. If one wants to please God and enter into His Kingdom, one must know how to assess the movements of one’s feelings as well as the rationalizings of one’s mind. Above all, one must give up being “pleasing to men.”

THE QUESTION OF BAPTISM

During our first conversations with Father Aemilianos, the abbot of Simonos Petras, about our entry into Orthodoxy, he had not concealed from us that, in his eyes, the customary and most appropriate form of entry into the Orthodox Church was through baptism. I had never thought about this aspect of Orthodox ecclesiology and, at the time, was quite surprised by it. I made a careful study of the problem, beginning with the canonical and patristic sources. I also found several articles, written by Catholic and Orthodox theologians and canonists, to be quite helpful. [22]

After a thorough examination of the question, and with the full agreement of our new abbot, it was decided that, when the time came, we would be received into the Orthodox Church by baptism. This later aroused surprise and sometimes indignation in those Catholic or Orthodox circles that were little acquainted with the theological and canonical tradition of the Greek Church. Since a large amount of inaccurate information has been circulated on this subject, I think it right to give here some historical and doctrinal details that will serve for a better understanding of the facts.

Since the third century two customs have co-existed in the Church for the reception of heterodox Christians: reception by the imposition of hands (or, by chrismation), and repetition of the baptismal rite already received in heterodoxy. Rome accepted only the laying on of hands and strongly condemned the repetition of the baptism of heretics. The Churches of Africa and Asia, on the other hand, held on to the second practice, the most ardent defenders of which were Saints Cyprian of Carthage and Firmilian of Caesarea. The later two insisted con the bond that exists between the sacraments and the Church. For them, a minister who had separated himself from the Church's profession of faith had separated himself at the same time from the Church herself, and so could no longer administer her sacraments.

From the fourth century, the Roman doctrine on the validity of heterodox sacraments, upheld by the exceptional authority of Saint Augustine in the West, was imposed on the whole Latin Church, at least in matters of baptism. The question of the validity of the heterodox ordination of priests was not generally accepted in the West until the thirteenth century.

In the East, however, thanks especially to the influence of Saint Basil, the ecclesiology and sacramental theology of Saint Cyprian never ceased to be considered as more in conformity with the tradition and spirit of the Church than the doctrine of Saint Augustine [who, in any case, was largely unknown in the Greek-speaking Church—ED.]. Baptism remained the absolute norm, akribea [lit., exactness] although, taking into account the practice of those local churches which recognized the baptism of heretics who did not deny the very fundamentals of the faith (the doctrine of the Trinity), it was accepted that when reasons of “economy” demanded it (that is, out of condescension for human weakness) they could be received by the laying on of hands, or Chrismation.

The principal canonical basis for the non-recognition of heterodox sacraments is the 46th Apostolic Canon which declares: “We ordain that a bishop, priest, or deacon who has admitted the baptism or sacrifice of heretics be deposed.” These Apostolic Canons, confirmed by the VIth Ecumenical Council (in Trullo) in 692, comprise the foundations of Orthodox canon law. The practice of economy in certain cases is authorized by Canon I of Saint Basil the Great.

At a later time, in the seventeenth century, the Russian Orthodox Church came under a very strong Latin influence,*** and was partially won over to the position of Saint Augustine. She then decided to receive Catholics into Orthodoxy by confession and a profession of faith alone. From the perspective of traditional Orthodox theology, this could only be accepted as a very generous instance of recourse to the principal of economy.

This explains the apparent contradictions found in the canonical texts of the Councils and the Fathers, as well as in the practice of the Orthodox Church down the centuries. So far as present practice is concerned, the reception of Catholics by baptism is very clearly prescribed in the Pedalion, an official compendium of canon law for the Churches of the Greek language, in which the text of the canons is accompanied by commentaries by Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, a very great authority. For the territories under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the decree prescribing the rebaptism of Catholics has never been abolished. As for the Church of Greece: “Those who wish to embrace Orthodoxy must be invited to rebaptism, and only in those cases where this is not possible should they be received by anointing with Holy Chrism.” [23]

Athos is a country where only monks live, who by virtue of their calling must strive to live out as best they can all the demands of Christian life and the Church's Tradition. They engage in no pastoral activity, nor do they seek to proselytize, that is, to draw people to Orthodoxy by making things easier for them. It is therefore normal for them to abide by akribeia, though without blaming those who, finding themselves in different circumstances, have recourse to economy.

Athos's vocation is akribeia in all spheres. It is normal for the non-Orthodox who become monks there to be received by baptism. Yet the monks of Athos are not men given to the constant condemnation of others, nor do they prefer severity to mercy, nor are they attached to a narrow-minded rigorism. The issue is on an altogether different level.

Some people have written that by “imposing” a new baptism on us, the monks of Athos forced us to repudiate and mock the whole of our past as Catholic monks. Others have also written that, to the contrary, it was we who asked for baptism, contrary to the wishes of our abbot, in order to satisfy the most rigorous minority of Athonite monks. [24]

These assertions have nothing to do with reality. The monks of Athos in fact imposed nothing on us. They did not oblige us to become Athonite monks, and they left us perfectly free to be received into Orthodoxy by different means elsewhere. Nor were we looking to please anyone at all. But since we had chosen, as we said above, to become monks of Mount Athos, we could only be received in the way accepted by men whom we held to be our fathers and brothers, and whose way of thinking we knew perfectly well. We asked freely to be received by baptism, in complete agreement with our abbot, because this procedure seemed to us both right and necessary for Athos, both theologically sound and canonically correct. This was not to “deny” our Catholic baptism received in the name of the Trinity, but to confess that everything it signified was fulfilled by our entry into the Orthodox Church. It was not to deny the real communion that exists between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches in much of their doctrine and sacramental practice, but it was to recognize that this communion in the faith is not perfect, and that, consequently, according to the most exact form of Orthodox theology, Catholic sacraments cannot be purely and simply recognized by the Orthodox Church. 

I have been asked for my retrospective opinion on the sacraments that we had ourselves administered while still priests of the Roman Church. I would simply reply that the Orthodox Church speaks more willingly about the “authenticity” and “legitimacy” of sacraments than about their “validity.” Only sacraments administered and received in the Orthodox Church are “authentic” and “legitimate” and, according to the usual order of things, the validity, or effective communication of grace, depends on this legitimacy. But the Holy Spirit is free with His gifts, and He can distribute them without going through the usual channels of salvation wherever He finds hearts that are well-disposed. Saint Gregory the Theologian said once: “Just as many of our own people are not really with us, because their lives separate them from the common body, so on the other hand many belong to us who outwardly are not ours, those whose conduct is in advance of their faith, who lack only the name, although they possess the reality itself" (PG 35, 992). He goes on to cite the case of his own father who before his conversion was “a foreign bough, if you wish, but by his way of life, a part of us.” We can therefore only leave this matter, with complete confidence, to the mercy of God.

We were received into the Orthodox Church on June 19, 1977. A few months later, on February 26, 1978, we became monks of Simonos Petras. We had told our abbot that we were equally prepared to stay on the Holy Mountain o return to France, leaving the decision to him. He thought it better that we establish ourselves in France. Thus two metochia (Russ. podvorie, subsidiaries] of Simonos Petras were formed: one at Martel on the Quercy plateau, and the other in Dauphine, in a deep valley of the Vercors.

By reason of their status as metochia, these two monasteries are directly dependent on Simonos Petras, which, like all the Athonite monasteries, is under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch. Any activity outside the monastery is done within the framework of the Greek Orthodox Metropolia in France and with the blessing of its Metropolitan, Meletios, with whom we enjoy a very close and trusting relationship.

THE SITUATION OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN FRANCE

On entering the Orthodox Church we were not surprised on finding a less than exemplary organization, one not outwardly similar and parallel to the Catholic Church. During a visit to Belgrade just before our reception into the Church, a Serbian bishop had remarked: “No doubt the Church will appear to you as a shambles. Do not be surprised by this. It is inevitable if the Holy Spirit is to be left free to work and not be supplanted.” This same impression had already been given us by the Church of the Fathers. Things had changed in the Latin Church along with its gradual centralization of authority in Rome—but that is another problem.

The situation that faced us in France was further complicated by the fact that the Orthodox Church was established there by various Greek and Russian emigrations. This resulted in the serious canonical anomaly of a plurality of jurisdictions over the same territory. Another anomaly is presented by the strong national characteristics that mark the different groups, a fact deriving from the plurality of jurisdictions. But, there it is: we are confronted by a situation common to all diasporas, and it would be utopian to claim to have an immediate remedy. In difficult conditions there are some advantages in the plurality of jurisdictions, this multiplicity can contribute towards the preservation of an authentic spiritual freedom.

The jurisdictions are, fundamentally, only dioceses which have the fault of overlapping one another, but which are all the Church of Christ. The fact that they come under different Mother Churches changes nothing. In each parish where the Divine Liturgy is celebrated, it is the Church of God which is present; one must be aware of this fact before anything else, and not make impenetrable barriers out jurisdictional allegiances. When Saint Irenaeus celebrated at Lyons ca. A.D. 180-190, it was not the Church of Smyrna that was represented: the assembled community, made up of Greek tradesmen and Gallic neophytes, was simply the Church of God at Lyons. If one day it should happen that all the Orthodox parishes in France are united under the authority of a single archbishop and territorial dioceses are established, this would certainly be a good thing since the situation would then be in accordance with the holy canons. But, when all is said and done, this Church, unified in is structure, would be no more the “Church of France"—or rather, the “Church of God in France” - than the present jurisdictional mosaic. Moreover, any premature autonomy would not be without its own risks.

What is important above all is to have a sense of, and love for, the unity of the Church. It is inevitable among Orthodox, even healthy, that there should be differences in opinions and sympathies. But, so long as these differences apply only to what is secondary and do not call into question either the faith or the fundamental discipline of the Church, they should never lead to enmity or exclusion, still less to a break in communion.

Our position as Athonite monks in France has the advantage of placing us outside certain jurisdictional antagonisms. For centuries Athos has had a “pan-Orthodox” vocation: monks from very different nationalities mingle together there and share a common experience of belonging to the "Garden of the Mother of God.” We would like our presence in France to be such a unifying factor, a cause of spiritual convergence among Orthodox of differing origins.

AN OLD MONK OF THE HOLY MOUNTAIN said to us one day: “You are not Roman Catholics converted to Greek Orthodoxy. You are Western Christians, members of the Church of Rome, who are back in communion with the Universal Church. This is something far greater and much more important.” And, as he said this, great tears ran down his cheeks... To be sure, we have been “converted,” in the sense that we have moved from the Roman Church—towards which we remain immensely grateful for all that we have received from our families and from this Christian people which carried us for so long—to the Orthodox Church.

But this Orthodox Church is not an “eastern” Church, an “oriental" expression of the Christian faith. She is the Church of Christ. Her tradition was the tradition common to all Christians throughout the early centuries, and, by entering into communion with her, we did no more than return to this common source. We have not “changed Churches": we have only gone from a separated bough of the One Church to the fullness of that Church.

We feel ourselves entirely to be of the number of those Western Christians who: “By asking to be received into the Orthodox Church have not, however, denied that which, in the West, and more particularly in their country, before and since the separation and schism, bore the mark of the Spirit of God, Who blows where He wills.” [25] 

We are Orthodox monks, called to live the tradition of the Holy Mountain in the land of France. We know that the mission of the monk "is not to accomplish something by his own resources, but to bear witness throughout his life that death has been overcome. And this he does only by burying himself in the earth, like a seed." [26] 

[Note from the blog: the above essay is a chapter in the book "The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain: Contemporary Voices from Mt Athos". The french original can be read here http://pagesorthodoxes.net/foi-orthodoxe/temoignage-placide-deseille.htm - for some reason some parts of the original is not present in the english translation] 

Notes

*Gregorian Reform: the reforms of the Roman Church in the Middle Ages, particularly associated with the pontificate of Gregory VII (1073-085), which culminated in the papal theocracy of Innocent Ill (1198-1216) and did most to shape the Roman Catholic Church as it appeared on the eve of Vatican II. The first of the Reform popes is generally felt to have been Leo IX (1049-1054), monk of the great monastery of Cluny in France which supplied many of the early Reform popes, including Gregory VII, and perhaps the very blueprint itself of the reformed Church. It was surely not accidental that the Roman curial official responsible for anathematizing Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople in 1054—and thus providing historians with the conventional date for the schism— was Cardinal Humbert da Silva, a legate of Leo IX and a very articulate (not to say violent) advocate of the reforms. In the words of the historian, George Every, “The Reform is the schism,” in The Byzantine Patriarchate, 451-1204, London 1962, p-193.—ED.

**“Deprecative formula of absolution”: the form still in use today in the Greek Church. As given in a Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers, Crestwood, N.Y., 1983, it reads as follows “My spiritual child, who has confessed to my humble person, I, humble and a sinner, have not power on earth to forgive sins, but God alone; but, through that divinely spoken word which came to the Apostles after the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: ‘Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted, and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained,” we are emboldened to say; Whatsoever thou hast said to humble person, and whatsoever thou hast failed to say, may God forgive thee in this world and in that which is to come” (p. 55). Compare this with the form used in Russian churches, taken from the Catholic texts in the seventeenth century: “May our lord and God Jesus Christ, through the Grace and bounties of His love towards mankind, forgive thee my child (name), all thy transgressions. And I, unworthy Priest, through the power given unto me by Him, do forgive and absolve thee from all thy sins (+). In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. (Ibid, p.60). This is one of the many ways in which the Russian Church was influenced by Roman Catholic thought and practice between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The earlier text clearly emphasizes the role of the priest as acting on behalf of the Church and less as exercising a “power” in his own right or by virtue (meaning the special “character” or “imprint”) of his ordination.—ED.

*** See above, note 16, and for an extensive treatment of the issue of Latin influences on Russian theology, Father George Florovsky, The Ways of Russian Theology, Vols. 5 and 6 of The Collected Works. On the mater of receiving Roman Catholics by confession of faith alone, this seems to have been the case in the reception of several million Eastern Rite Catholics in the last century (see the documents collected by A.N. Mouravief, A History of he Church of Rusia (trans. R. W, Blackmore), Oxford 1842, reprinted by Saint Tikhon's Seminary Press, South Canaan, Pa, pp. 430-48, esp. 438-440), but it is not reflected in the Service Book of the Holy Orthodox, Catholic and Apostolic Church (trans. Isabel Florence Hapgood), 4th ed., Brooklyn 1948 pp. 454-467. In that Miss Hapgood was translating from the Russian service books in use at the turn of the century, one would presume that a special exception for Roman Catholics would have been included in the prescriptions for the reception of converts. There is no such indication, however, and Catholics appear to have been bundled together with Protestants and other groups whose baptism is deemed “valid.” The use of the latter term also, of course, reflects a certain influence from the West. -ED.

These notes comprise part of the translated text of the article by Father Placide. Our additions, for purposes of clarification, will be indicated by the use of brackets. 

1. Beurons, Maredsous, and Solemnes are Benedictine monasteries (i.e., following the Rule of St. Benedict) located respectively in Germany, Belgium and France. During the nineteenth and first part of the twentieth century they contributed greatly to the liturgical and patristic renewal of the Roman Catholic Church. Dom Marmion (1858-1932), abbot of Meredsous, published very sound works on spirituality, basing himself primarily on the doctrine of St. Paul, and thus exercised a very considerable influence. 

2. Johannes Joergensen: Danish author who published an excellent life of St. Francis of Assisi in 1909. 3. Fioretti ("Little flowers of St. Francis") are a collection composed in the hermitages of Umbria [the province of St. Francis' birth and where he spent much of his life - ED.] They tell the history of Francis' life and that of his first companions with great freshness.

4. The Cistercians are a monastic order comprising the monasteries dependent on the Abbey of Citeaux (in Latin: Cistercium). It was founded in Burgundy [southeastern France - ED.] at the end of the eleventh century by a small group of Benedictine monks who wanted to live a life of greater poverty and simplicity than that of the great monasteries of their era. The order was adorned in the twelfth century in particular by Bernard of Clairvaux, who exercised an enormous influence on his era as a preacher, author of spiritual works, and counselor of popes and kings. In the following centuries the order underwent an evolution which took it far from the austerity of its origins. It was partially reformed in the seventeenth century, in particular under the influence of d'Armand-Jean de Rance, abbot of the monastery of Trappe in Normandy [La Grande Trappe]. This reform gave birth, in the nineteenth century, to the Trappist Order, of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. 

5. John of the Cross (1545-1591): a Spanish religious [i.e., member of a religious order, but not—at least according to the definitions of Roman Catholic canon law—a monk. —ED.] who was associated with Theresa of Avila in his work of reforming the monasteries which followed the Rule of Carmel [Carmelites]. He is one of the greatest mystical writers of the Catholic Church. His teaching can be summed up in the following maxim: “Do not seek out the presence of creatures if you want your soul to keep the features of God’s Face in their clarity and purity, but make an absence in your spirit and remove it from every created thing: you will then walk in the lightning flash of God’s light, for God is not like what is created.”

6. The French school of spirituality: name given to a Catholic spiritual movement which began in France under the direction of Cardinal Pierre de Berulle (1575-1659). The latter propounded in

numerous works a doctrine of the deification of the Christian which was inspired by the Fathers of the Church, especially by SS Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo. He had many disciples and successors up to the nineteenth century. Louis Lallemant and Jean-Joseph Surin, French Jesuits, were among the most remarkable spiritual writers of the seventeenth century. Their whole doctrine tends to show that, by grace of a total renunciation of his will, the Christian can arrive, by God’s grace, at a condition where “man is so moved and aware of the Holy Spirit that he is scarcely any longer aware of his own inclinations, but only those of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the principle of his montions, in accordance with that which St. Paul said: ‘Those are the children of God who are guided by His Spirit.’”

7. Henri de Lubac: French Jesuit who, during the whole period following the Second World War, contributed greatly to making the works and thought of the Fathers familiar to Roman Catholics. 

 8. Jean Daniélou (1905-1974): French Jesuit, named a Cardinal in 1969, who exercised his apostolate [work in the world on behalf of Christ and the Church] in intellectual and university circles, and who published numerous writtings on the Fathers of the Church.

9. Odo Casel (1886-1948): German Benedictine, was the principal theologian of the liturgical renewal in the Catholic Church. Nourished on the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, he strove to demonstrate in numerous works that the liturgical feasts of the Church are not simply recollections of past events, but make the basic facts of God's economy of salvation objectively present fot the Church, such that the belivers may participate in them [certainly he was an important source as well for the thought and writtings of such modern Orthodox teachers as, for example, the late Fr. Alexander Schmemann - ED.].

10. Dieu Vivant (Living God): journal of religious culture which appeared in Paris from 1945 to 1953, with the collaboration of Fr. Daniélou. It opened up an extensive exchange, at a very high intellectual level, between the different Christian confessions, the great religions, and contemporary philosophical thought. Authors such as Vladimir Lossky and Myrrha Lot-Borodine brought to it the witness of Orthodoxy. La Maison-Dieu (The House of God): journal of liturgy which, between the Second World War and Vatican II, was the principal organ of liturgical renewal within the Catholic Church for French-speaking countries. 

11. Sources chrétiennes: a series of publications, with French translation, of the texts of the Church Fathers. Founded in 1942 by Fr.s de Lubac and Daniélou, this collection, at present directed by Fr. Mondesert, today [1984] includes more than three hundred volumes. Its creation had as its purpose to “allow the return to the sources of Christian thought” by publishing the writings of the Fathers, and to "create a bridge between East and West by making available those texts which comprise their common patrimony for the first ten centuries.” The series, marked by very sound scholarship, was particularly well received in university circles.

12. Action catholique: a group of organizations composed of Catholic laity exercising an apostolate, whether in their local parishes or their work places, under the responsibility of the hierarchy. These different movements, beginning to appear from 1926 (creation of "Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne" [Young Christian Workers]), underwent considerable development following World War Il. They contributed much much to changing the understanding that the Catholic Church had of its relations to the world and of the role of the laity. The Church of the Counter-Reformation (see n. 14), highly clericalized from its summit in the Pope on down, had seen itself as transcedent to the world and charged with communicating to it a Truth and Life received from God which the world did not in itself possess. In this Church, the function of the laity was especially to accept the direction of the hierarchy and to make use of the means of santification which the latter had at its disposal. With the development of Action Catholique, the Roman Church began to think that the world, like the Church, is animated by the Holy Spirit Who acts hiddenly within. The proper role of the Church would be then be to reveal to the wolrd the real name of the mysterious Breath which in fact animates it, and to help and guide the world to the accomplishment of its hopes, which accomplishment will be made definitive with the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time. This new conception had as a consequence a profound alteration of the status of the laity in the Church: by reason of their very familial, professional, and political involvements, the laity came to appear at particularly well-placed to exercise a positive role in the mission of the Church to the world.

13. Worker priests: a certain number of Catholic priests had been prisoners of war between 1940 and 1945. By partaking thus of their fellows’ common lot, they had discovered a new approach to their apostolate which seemed promising to them for the evangelization of the de-christianized world of the workers. On returning to France they wanted somehow to prolong this experience by joining the exercise of a profession to their priesthood—the job often being that of a worker in a factory. But this attempt quickly took on a particular meaning in view of the developments in the relations between Church and world which had begun to appear at the time (see n. 12 above). In this context, a crisis in the priesthood began to result: “The layman, Christian in the full sense of the word, allows the priest only a role which is secondary and, in effect, unobtrusive. Whence the paradoxical desire of the priest to become layman - or, to put it less abruptly, his desire to share completely in the human condition in all its forms and not appear as an anachronism in contemporary society” (P. Guilmont, Fin d'une église clericale? (End of a Clerical Church?) Paris, 1969; 327). This particular perspective would eventually lead, in the wake of Vatican II, to a rather large number of priests purely and simply abandoning the priesthood, and it would cause as well a significant decline in the numbers entering the seminaries. In the years preceding the Council, however, some priests—often among the most zealous for this apostolate—saw in their involvement in professional activities and, eventually, in their responsibilities in the unions one of the possible ways of adapting the exercise of the priesthood to the new conception of the Church vis-a-vis the world which advanced Catholic circles wanted to see become that of the Roman Church. Beginning in the years after World War II and with the support of Cardinal Surhard, at that time Archbishop of Paris, the experiment of the worker priests posed a question to the traditional Roman ecclesiology which was too radical to be approved by the Vatican of that era. The experiment was terminated by the voice of authority between 1953 and 1959. This in turn provoked a fairly serious crisis in the Church of France. The experiment, though, of the worker priests had significantly contributed to prepare the climate of Catholic opinion for the changes at work in the Roman Church after Vatican II. 

14. Counter-Reformation: the vast movement of internal reform which took place in the Roman Catholic Church following the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which was convoked to remedy the deficiencies and abuses which had contributed to the birth and development of the Protestant Reformation. This period saw the accentuation of certain negative aspects of the medieval Roman Church: an over-centralized understanding of the papacy and an authoritarian one regarding the hierarchy; an overly rationalized and often decadent scholastic theology; the Inquisition in matters of doctrine, which occasionally resulted in a reign of terror. But, at the same time, a number of great spiritual personalities, such as Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross, gave rise to a most remarkable renewal of religious fervor and prayer life. The latter animated reforming bishops such as Charles Borromeo in Lombardy and Francis of Sales in Savoy, who exercised an enormous influence and had many imitators. These were the kind of men who prayed, fasted, and kept vigil like the ancient Fathers, who devoted themselves in all ways to the poor, the sick, and the disinherited, yet who were also energetic men of action and organizers. They gave the Roman Church all that was best in her, which she preserved from the end of the sixteenth century to the middle of the twentieth.

15. M.-J. Le Guillou, L'espirit de l'Orthodoxie grecque et russe (The Spirit of the Greek and Russian Orthodoxy) (Paris, 1961), 47.

16. J. Gelineau, Demain la Liturgie (The Liturgy Tomorrow) (Paris, 1976), 10.

17. Yves Congar, Notes sur le schisme oriental, Chevtogne 1954, 43, [Two works of Fr. Congar in English give ample demonstration of the position Fr. Placide is discussing here: After Nine Hundred Years (Fordham, N.Y., 1959), and Diversity and Communion, trans. John Bowden (Mystic, Conn, 1985), esp. 47-104, where Fr. Congar, in the looser atmosphere of the post-Vatican years, stretches ecumenical possibilities about as far as one conceivably could without abandoning the Roman Church altogether. His feel and sympathy for the Orthodox Church is palpable and, if we cannot always agree with him, we must surely at least salute his generosity. - ED.].

18. A. Vauchez, La spiritualité du Moyen Age occidental (Paris, 1975), 68.

19. P. Batiffol, Cathedra Petri (Paris, 1938), 75f.

20. W. De Vries, Orient et Occident: Les structures écclesiales vues dans l'histoire des sept premiers conciles oecumeniques (Paris, 1974), 215-216.

21. S. Boulgakov, L’Orthodoxie (Lausanne, 1980), 101-102.

22. See especially the excellent study of Yves Congar on Economy: “Orthodox theologians, with some exceptions . . . base themselves overwhelmingly on the affirmation that true sacraments exist only in the One Church... This position seems to approach a common understanding and expresses a traditional basis of Orthodox thought” (Y. Congar, “Propos en vue d’une théologie de I’“Economie” dans la tradition latine,” Irénikon, 1972, 180 and 183). The anonymous author of the editorial in the same edition of Irénikon judiciously sketches the limitations of the Augustinian theology which prevailed in the West. With reference to the sacraments of the heterodox, he notes: “Since the thirteenth century a mistaken perspective has, for us, detached the sacraments from ecclesiology. This would seem to us to be the logical conclusion of the slow evolution of those positions taken by the West since its struggle with Donatism. Progressively, the theology of the Holy Spirit was made to pay for it until the effective elimination of His role in the relation between the sacraments and the Church. Vatican II tried to remedy this. Very timidly, sometimes clumsily, with more good will than an understanding of the whole" (op. cit., 153-154). In any case, one can say that since the third century there has never been any unanimity regarding the recognition of the sacraments of the heterodox and, outside the Latin tradition, it is indeed the opposite which has prevailed. See also P. L’Huillier, “Les divers modes de reception dans l'Orthodoxie et les Catholiques romains," in Le Messager Orthodoxe, no. 88 (1979/1), and the same in "Économie ecclesiastique et la réiteration des sacraments” in Irénikon 1977, 228-247 and 338-362. [Still, it should be noted that, particularly with a view to what follows in Fr. Placide’s autobiography, there is a debate in the modern Orthodox Church. To say, as Fr. Placide does below, that the ‘Cyprianic” view of the sacraments has generally prevailed in Orthodox thought, though certainly true and in particular true of the Greek-speaking Church (Mt. Athos above all!), is still not to address the question whether or not there is something to be said for the equally ancient view of Stephen of Rome, Cyprian’s third century contemporary and adversary on this question, and the later writings of Augustine of Hippo. For the view that Augustine’s understanding is indeed to be preferred to Cyprian's as eliminating certain of the very real ambiguities in the latter's approach and, incidentally, of the contemporary (and often chaotic) application of "economy", see the article by the late Fr. Georges Florovsky, "The Limits of the Church" in Sourozh no. 26 (1986), 13-24 (also printed in vol. 13 of The Collected Works of Father Georges Florovsky, 1989, 36-45). Note in particular Fr. George's observation, "Contemporary Orthodox theology must explain the traditional canonical practices of the Church in relation to heretics and schismatics on the basis of those general premises which have been established by Augustine" (Sourozh, 23). It is arguable that, at least in this one instance, the influence of Latin theology on the Russian Church may eventually prove to be of some benefit for the Church as whole. It is true in any case that with this question, that is, the reception or non-reception of heterodox sacraments, we have arrived at one of the "neuralgic points" of present day Orthodoxy in response to, in particular, the chanllenge posed by the Ecumenincal Movement. - E.D.]

23. P. L'Huillier, "Les divers modes" (cited in previous note), p. 22, n. 25. 

24. This “information was circulated via a confidential note addressed to French-speaking Catholic monasteries by the “Monastic Secretariat.” It is concerned with the reasons why “Fr. Placide and his companions” asked to be baptized against the will of their abbot (!): “By behaving in this way, they doubtlessly hoped to cultivate the approval of the most conservative elements of Athonite monasticism, in whom they sensed a suspicious caution, even hostility.” Bulletin au Secretariat monastique (October, 1977).

25. E. Behr-Sigel, in Contacts, no. 45 (1964/1), 49.

26. Archimandrite Basil, Abbot of Stavronikita, in Contacts no. 89 (1975/1), 101.